Quote:
Originally Posted by Lowfategg
And since its a CNC thread, how much is it to convert a Bridgeport to CNC?
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I don't mean to sound like a downer, but I've never heard of a flawless manual-to-CNC conversion of a milling machine. Unless you do CNC-conversions for a living, the vast majority (of even technically inclined people) will struggle and spend thousands and thousands of dollars, struggle for months and months (which might stretch to years...), and often end up with something that often needs a lot of "maintenance" to barely keep running.
Honestly, you'd be much better off buying quality tooling, vise(s), a rotary table, and DROs and leaving it as a manual machine. Quality tooling can be expensive, but don't waste money: don't buy the cheapest tooling and don't buy the most expensive tooling. Somewhere in the middle is generally good. As for vises, a good vise, like Kurt, can run you about $700 (but you can also buy cheaper ones in the $200-$400 range if you don't plan on doing any real heavy duty stuff), and a good rotary table can also be a bit expensive. A dual-axis DRO is generally about $1500-$2000. You don't need three-axis DROs, since the weight of the table often keeps the backlash on the Z-axis to a minimum, and tolerances of +/- 0.005 are easy to keep.
With quality DROs and a good machinist, you can easily machine gearbox plates with tight tolerances on a manual milling machine that work flawlessly on a FRC robot.